Gigabyte
Gigabyte is a virus writer from Belgium. She is known for being one of the few female virus/worm writers, as well as being very public and ethical about her virus/worm writing. Her feud with Sophos Antivirus expert Graham Cluley is also notable. A few of her viruses are humorous, while others, such as Sharp are intended to demonstrate new concepts. None of Gigabyte's viruses or worms has ever made it into the wild. Biography Gigabyte lives in the town of Mechelen, Belgium, a few kilometers outside of Brussels. She began programming on her uncle's Commodore64 when she was 6 years old and began writing viruses as a member of the Metaphase VX team as a hobby when she was 14. Her first virus took over the shutdown screens of the infected user. She went to a religious school that no longer taught religion, but according to Gigabyte, had good computer classes. Her teacher was impressed with her programming skills, but did not approve of her virus writing. Although the teacher did not approve of her virus writing, Gigabyte had more or less friendly relationship with the teacher. Arrest Gigabyte was arrested by Belgian authorities on February 9, 2004 on 11 counts of a Belgian "computer data sabotage" law from 2000. Five of her computers were confiscated and her website was shut down. She could face a prison sentence of three months or three years and a fine of 100,000 Euros. However, she was released 24 hours after her arrest. In most countries, it is illegal to spread viruses, but not to simply create them. As Gigabyte had never deliberately spread the viruses, there would be no case against her. The worm Trilisa contained the text "HECHO EN ADMIRACION DE GIGABYTE", which indicates some unhappiness by some of the VX community over her arrest. Also, the VBS worm Charlotte (known as Northsky to some Antivirus programs) contains the text, "Just like to show my support to Gigabyte whos sic work has inspired many to create bigger and better projects. thanx... sic INDUSTRY" Motives Gigabyte codes viruses out of curiosity and trying out new programming languages (C# and Logo). Many of her viruses are humorous and include funny quizzes and games. None of her viruses cause significant damage to the computer's operating system and one YahaSux even erases certain variants of the Yaha worm. Ethics Gigabyte has been known for being one of the more ethical virus/worm coders. She has never released a virus or worm to the wild, although expresses disdain for people who open email attachments from strange senders, and even new users who do not know better. She believes the fault is on the user for opening and running the attachment. In spite of this, Gigabyte has said that it is very mean and disrespectful to exploit tragedies like 9/11 and the SARS to get users to open an attachment, as it will make otherwise intelligent users forget good security practices, since the event is important to them and probably coming at a difficult time. Anti-Microsoft The myth that Gigabyte writes viruses as an anti-Microsoft statement and to embarrass the company has been reported almost as much as the myth that she wrote them as a feminist statement. Although her website had the text "Bill Gates is Satan", and she once described Bill Gates as "ugly", this may have just been for humor. Gigabyte said she has nothing against Bill Gates or Microsoft personally, but does not like their inability to admit to having made mistakes. In addition, Gigabyte found no major problems with the .NET platform or C#, other than that one can create a virus for that platform in that language, just like any other language or platform. Other Facts One of her favorite programming languages is C++. In addition to computers, Gigabyte likes horses, kickboxing and dancing. Her favorite types of music are house and trance. She owns a pet ferret. Gigabyte does not like computer games. As of right now, Gigabyte is now into networking. Gigabyte's Virus/Worms *Buffy (two versions) *Conut *Darkness *Entice *Gum (two versions) *Logic *Parrot *Sahara *Scooter *Scrambler (two versions) *Sharp *Stress_Out *Xanax *YahaSux (two versions) *Quizzy Sources Webwereld, "Belgische politie verhoort Gigabyte". 2004.02.16 Mathieu Van Overstraeten. La Libre Belgique, "La police intercepte une pirate belge". 2004.02.14 Becky Worley. TechLive, "Belgian Law Bites Gigabyte". 2004.02.18 Rick Lockridge. Tech Live, "Female Hacker Packs Punch". 2002.04.24 Douglas Knowles. Symantec Security Response, "W32.Trilisa@mm". Category:Creator Category:Coder Category:Person